Press release

China's Hui: We tried to feed off the energy here in Japan

Risa Shinnabe and Japan just couldn't finish against China on Sunday

Hiroshima, Japan, November 6, 2011 - China vs Japan press conference: After a long five set battle against the hosts Japan, China walked away with it’s second win of the World Cup. For China, this come-from-behind victory was one they had prepared hard for.

China coach Yu Juemin:

On their mental game: Many young players played today. Some of our players have got used to this atmosphere, and they led the rest of the players. we did well to adjust.

On China’s blocking: Today’s blocking wasn’t great, and it could have been better. They look like they’ve studied, and were great attacking with quick strikes. We missed many chance to block them.

China player Hui Ruoqi: It was a close match, we both achieved a high level of play. Japan blocks well, and has quick attacks, and that’s what we should learn from them.

Japan is the host country so the audience always brings additional atmosphere. But we try to feed off that energy too.

Japan coach Masayosi Manabe: We played very well, with good serving and reception in the beginning, but later we had lots of errors. Wang Yimei and Hui Ruoqi were very powerful in attack.

On losing the lead: Our reception was bad, and if reception is bad then the Chinese team can block well. We did our best, but it was hard for us to play against their blocking.

Japan captain Erika Araki: We were ahead in middle of the fifth, but lost eventually, and that was really frustrating. We played some points well, but later in the set made many errors and that gave them a chance to take it.

Yoshie Takeshita: This loss was frustrating because we missed a lot of chances. We could have won. We’ll be trying hard in the next match.

On previous losses to China: Each match has different reasons why we lost, but today it was many errors and missed chances.

Japan player Yukiko Ebata: We’re sorry we lost. We need to work harder moving forward after this. We did learn a few things from today though, and we’ll try our best in the next matches.